Simon E. wrote:An old DW hand PM'd recently to say that a major problem on the forum is the proportion of posters whose grasp of English is nothing like as nuanced as they think it is.The result is a dialogue of the deaf, where both sides are actually discussing another issue entirely..

Lets try again.There is a lot of evidence that some forms of Buddhism claim to value the Feminine , while actually discriminating against flesh and blood females.Evidence ?...legion.Whether in the form of a recent major schism in the Theravada Sangha because women were ordained...because their place is cooking the rice.The use of and discarding of women in Karmamudra practice which has led and is still leading to law suites.The frequent references particularly in the Pali Canon to women's inferiority and the need to shun them.The virtual absence in traditional groups of female Tulkus..with a tiny few excepti to be clear I think the Tulku system is transparently a con...but it is nevertheless revealing.Even within the politics of local Buddhist groups in Europe and the U.S. women are still assigned certain roles, and sooner or later any young idealistic Buddhist woman will come smack up against the truth of the matter.This in part is due to the legacy of aversion to things of the body that Buddhism has recieved from its Subcontinental heritage. Its clear and undisguised in the Theravada. It can be more subtle elsewhere.

Could you provide references to where exactly in the Pali scriptures women are portrayed as inferior?

"Nothing can be known, not even this."-- Arcesilaus (but I'm not sure)

Simon E. wrote:Nah. Its about control.Keep 'em chained to the kitchen, or stick 'em on a pedestal.Anything but standing face to face.

Just as a matter of interest..anyone know what proportion of regular posters to this forum are women ?

You won't hear me argue. Among the regular active posters, being a woman here can often feel pretttttttty lonesome (I say as a frequent returner among a handful of women who get 'in it' with the boys... Some days it's like... really?! BACK TO THIS? - but hey, you get used to it).

Fruitzilla wrote:Since internet forum buddhism is a much more violent activity than "real life" buddhism", you'll see most women will either be not interested in it from the start, or lose interest very quickly, imho.

I disagree with online Buddhism being more violent, honestly. I don't think it's that at all. I do think that with too much testosterone on a page, many women who read don't even bother replying and turn away. Here is why I think this happens, this is purely my (female) opinion.

Men LOVE to argue about the objects (the this law, the that rule, the this point alone), they nitpick at the objects, obsess about the objects. They want to be right about the object itself, so don't necessarily view it within its relational context. (YOU SAID XYZ, YOU CALLED ME xyz. You say this is this thing, but it's actually that thing.----> BOOOOOOORING to a woman - they tune it out.)

Most women -- once the object is described and established -- are done with the actual morphology of the object itself and want to move onto the interesting part -- the relationships between the objects. What is their interaction, what is their direct application, how does it look like when you shift this or that variable. The 'good bits' are in the morphology of the "relationship between principles" - NOT necessarily the principle itself. That was so first paragraph... moving on.

From what I've observed and researched, there is simply a tendency to prioritize data differently in the male and female brain. Nothing wrong with it, we all have strong and weak points in our respective genders. IT WOULD be nice, from a selfish point of view, to have more women posting who feel like they have a place here too... Often I know that they lurk and read, but don't GET IN IT. And as far as women go, I'm pretty hardy in terms of forum culture... we can go at it, I'm game, but I also have no problem with standing my ground in debates. I am not necessarily a typical woman in this respect either, statistically speaking. So I often know how it is to feel more shy, not wanting my head chomped off just by having a different way of formulating my opinions. Women are not typically fighters, verbally on forums. They like the relationships between objects, including in their social interactions to be harmonious. You would think in a Buddhist environment, that WOULD be favored and given respect... nope, some willy-waver will inevitably have to be right.

just saying it bluntly... Yeah. I said it.

How can we say really discuss sex's vulgarity if the context it's presented and discussed in is mostly male? We kind of need the OTHER part of sex too, no? Maybe the thread should be: Is sex considered vulgar to MALE buddhists? Then we're getting closer to this thread's contents.. But has anyone even asked if we are even talking about the same thing?

SEX - the meaning of the word itself is different in how our male and female brains associate it. Let's do a round in the class, what is sex anyway?

To many a woman, it's a complex series of emotional states and relationships within the self between desire, love, need, security/insecurity, self-image, etc. before we ever even get to the act of the genitals meeting in the act of copulation. It's not just DOING it. "A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love." a profound insight of all-time poet Leonard Cohen who writes from a man's view

To many a man, sex is directly the copulation itself, and associated objects: visual objects, the sperm, the body parts, the sensory input, the male virility itself, etc. There's the urge, there's the doing, there's the done. The objects.

Feel free to tear it apart, but that's my 2 cents on women not chiming in and this thread being about male sex in Buddhism. Women would want to talk about things differently, and get too easily shot down by a male majority. That's all.

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget." –Arundhati Roy

"When you enter this pure path,Unsuitable things which otherwise would be eliminated - Even the five passions and the five heinous crimes - are wonderfully the same.Nothing, not even sex, is abandoned."- Longchenpa

Simon E. wrote:An old DW hand PM'd recently to say that a major problem on the forum is the proportion of posters whose grasp of English is nothing like as nuanced as they think it is.The result is a dialogue of the deaf, where both sides are actually discussing another issue entirely..

Lets try again.There is a lot of evidence that some forms of Buddhism claim to value the Feminine , while actually discriminating against flesh and blood females.Evidence ?...legion.Whether in the form of a recent major schism in the Theravada Sangha because women were ordained...because their place is cooking the rice.The use of and discarding of women in Karmamudra practice which has led and is still leading to law suites.The frequent references particularly in the Pali Canon to women's inferiority and the need to shun them.The virtual absence in traditional groups of female Tulkus..with a tiny few excepti to be clear I think the Tulku system is transparently a con...but it is nevertheless revealing.Even within the politics of local Buddhist groups in Europe and the U.S. women are still assigned certain roles, and sooner or later any young idealistic Buddhist woman will come smack up against the truth of the matter.This in part is due to the legacy of aversion to things of the body that Buddhism has recieved from its Subcontinental heritage. Its clear and undisguised in the Theravada. It can be more subtle elsewhere.

Could you provide references to where exactly in the Pali scriptures women are portrayed as inferior?

You are I assume joking. You cant move for them.From the time that Gautam reacts with disgust to the sleeping forms of the " dancing girls" which in the probably apocryphal story exist merely for his pleasure, through to his resistance to women in the Sangha, to his warnings about the dangers posed by women he reveals himself a man of his time and place,....shaped by conditioning we would now describe a deeply chauvinist. But in fact for a man of his time he is relatively liberal on the issue.His fear of sexuality which was and is the norm in Subcontinental spiritual systems is always close to the surface. The rise of Tantra was a reaction to the prevailing norm. Sutra and Tantra define each other.Our original nature is innocent of all that.

" My heart's in the Highlands my heart is not here.My heart's in the Highlandschasing the deer."

Fruitzilla wrote:Since internet forum buddhism is a much more violent activity than "real life" buddhism", you'll see most women will either be not interested in it from the start, or lose interest very quickly, imho.

I disagree with online Buddhism being more violent, honestly. I don't think it's that at all.

In my experience,'internet forum Buddhism' is on the average less violent and more broad-minded than "'real life' Buddhism". Online there seems to be more much tolerance within the Buddhist world (i.e., tolerance of one Buddhist tradition for the 'heresies' of others) as well as at least a bit more open-minded attitude towards non-Buddhist traditions.

Many of the Buddhists I know in 'real life' are hard-boiled party-line fanatics. It's a cultural thing, I guess, though, and nothing to do with Buddhism per se - the vast majority of them appear to suffer also from many of the worst prejudices of their culture. Racism, chauvinism, sexism, homophobia - you name it.

It works both ways...we are attracted to that which confirms our fears and legitimises our aversions.It for example does not take a long acquaintance with the Theravada for a highly neurotic and dysfunctional view of sexuality to become obvious. I have known married male Theravadins with kids who clearly are conflicted about having a sex life ......within their marriage!They dismiss this as personal weakness and sigh that they are aware that ultimately it will have be transcended." Lord make me chaste..but not yet " as the equally conflicted Augustine wrote.None of these self erected ( whoops ) barriers have anything to do with anything.As ChNNN says our real nature is no more obscured by the sex act per se as it is by smelling flowers.As long as a conflicted view of sexuality remains prevalent talk of mutual respect between the genders is just talk. That conflicted view will inevitably give rise to aversion and tension.

" My heart's in the Highlands my heart is not here.My heart's in the Highlandschasing the deer."

Ogyen wrote:Men LOVE to argue about the objects (the this law, the that rule, the this point alone), they nitpick at the objects, obsess about the objects. They want to be right about the object itself, so don't necessarily view it within its relational context. (YOU SAID XYZ, YOU CALLED ME xyz. You say this is this thing, but it's actually that thing.----> BOOOOOOORING to a woman - they tune it out.)

Most women -- once the object is described and established -- are done with the actual morphology of the object itself and want to move onto the interesting part -- the relationships between the objects. What is their interaction, what is their direct application, how does it look like when you shift this or that variable. The 'good bits' are in the morphology of the "relationship between principles" - NOT necessarily the principle itself. That was so first paragraph... moving on.

Feel free to tear it apart, but that's my 2 cents on women not chiming in and this thread being about male sex in Buddhism. Women would want to talk about things differently, and get too easily shot down by a male majority. That's all.

I'm a pretty feminine guy in this respect. I never got the obsession with being right and browbeating other people to accept your viewpoint. I am usually more interested in how the viewpoint came to be be anyway. Do you just accept dogma on faith, are you scared to disagree with authority, did you reason it out or just intuit it or maybe a combation of those.And if you turn out to be right, why would it matter if you're just as big an asshole as before?

These are the kinds of things that keep me reading (and occasionaly writing to) buddhist fora. Especially since buddhism makes quite extraordinary claims, I look for extraordinary expressions. So far, no luck.

Anyway, I was wondering how to answers Simons quiestion and failing to come up with much. Thanks to your post I could, yay!

Fruitzilla wrote:Since internet forum buddhism is a much more violent activity than "real life" buddhism", you'll see most women will either be not interested in it from the start, or lose interest very quickly, imho.

I disagree with online Buddhism being more violent, honestly. I don't think it's that at all.

In my experience,'internet forum Buddhism' is on the average less violent and more broad-minded than "'real life' Buddhism". Online there seems to be more much tolerance within the Buddhist world (i.e., tolerance of one Buddhist tradition for the 'heresies' of others) as well as at least a bit more open-minded attitude towards non-Buddhist traditions.

Many of the Buddhists I know in 'real life' are hard-boiled party-line fanatics. It's a cultural thing, I guess, though, and nothing to do with Buddhism per se - the vast majority of them appear to suffer also from many of the worst prejudices of their culture. Racism, chauvinism, sexism, homophobia - you name it.

Funny. Most buddhists I know in meatspace are more broad-minded than in cyberspace. Most buddhist practitioners I know wouldn't blink an eye at Malcolms supposed turnaround that caused quite an uproar here.

As a woman, as a frequent poster here and at the old e-sangha I avoid all such discussions. I remember reading the one about consorts a while back, it descended into fighting, then juvenile sexual jokes, reminded me of 13 year old boys. Boring then, boring now.rory

Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu Chih-I:The Tai-ching states "the women in the realms of Mara, Sakra and Brahma all neither abandoned ( their old) bodies nor received (new) bodies. They all received buddhahood with their current bodies (genshin)" Thus these verses state that the dharma nature is like a great ocean. No right or wrong is preached (within it) Ordinary people and sages are equal, without superiority or inferiority Paul, Groner "The Lotus Sutra in Japanese Culture"eds. Tanabe p. 58

Ikkyu wrote:Could you provide references to where exactly in the Pali scriptures women are portrayed as inferior?

The vinaya has some pretty offensive misogyny. The 8 heavies are a good example.

I read the Garudhammas and all I have to ask is...How could someone, especially a woman, take this religion seriously?

For that matter, are the eight Garudhammas actually the words of the Buddha himself?

"1. A bhikkhuni who has been fully ordained even for more than a century must bow down, rise up from her seat, salute with hands palm-to-palm over her heart, and perform the duties of respect to a bhikkhu even if he has been fully ordained only a day. This rule is to be honored, respected, revered, venerated, never to be transgressed as long as she lives.2. A bhikkhuni must not spend the rains in a residence where there is no bhikkhu...3. Every half-month a bhikkhuni should request two things from the Bhikkhu Sangha: she should ask for the date of the uposatha day and come for an exhortation...4. At the end of the Rains-residence, a bhikkhuni should invite (criticism both from) the Bhikkhu Sangha and the Bhikkhuni Sangha on any of three grounds: what they have seen, what they have heard, what they have suspected...5. A bhikkhuni who has broken any of the vows of respect must undergo penance for half a month under both Sanghas...6. Only after a probationer has trained in the six precepts for two years should she request ordination from both Sanghas...7. A bhikkhu must not in any way be insulted or reviled by a bhikkhuni...8. From this day forward, the admonition of a bhikkhu by a bhikkhuni is forbidden, but the admonition of a bhikkhuni by a bhikkhu is not forbidden. This rule, too, is to be honored, respected, revered, venerated, never to be transgressed as long as she lives."

"Nothing can be known, not even this."-- Arcesilaus (but I'm not sure)

Ikkyu wrote:Could you provide references to where exactly in the Pali scriptures women are portrayed as inferior?

The vinaya has some pretty offensive misogyny. The 8 heavies are a good example.

I read the Garudhammas and all I have to ask is...How could someone, especially a woman, take this religion seriously?

For that matter, are the eight Garudhammas actually the words of the Buddha himself?

1. The Buddha is referring to nuns, not women in general.2. The entire ancient society around the Buddha was aghast that he allowed women to become nuns (gender equality). So understandably, the Buddha placed restraints on nuns so the rest of Indian society wouldn't be alienated from Buddhism.

Should the restraints now be lifted? Yes of course.

Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.Through the qualities of meditating in that way,Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

Here's something interesting. In the Kama Sutta the Buddha states the following:

"If one, longing for sexual pleasure, achieves it, yes, he's enraptured at heart. The mortal gets what he wants. But if for that person — longing, desiring — the pleasures diminish, he's shattered, as if shot with an arrow."

...

"So one, always mindful, should avoid sexual desires. Letting them go, he will cross over the flood like one who, having bailed out the boat, has reached the far shore."

"Nothing can be known, not even this."-- Arcesilaus (but I'm not sure)